Blithe spirits in wartime Washington

Jennet Conant's 109 East Palace told the story of how the atomic bomb was constructed in the "secret city" of Los Alamos, New Mexico. Now in The Irregulars, she uncovers another World War II episode: the invasion of Washington, D.C., by a corps of dashing, well-spoken British spies whose job was to turn the country from isolationism to full-throated support of England's fight against...

Undercover lovers

Jennet Conant is a genius at finding significant World War II-era stories that have largely gone untold or unnoticed in the more comprehensive chronicles of that period. As the granddaughter of James Bryant Conant, the eminent chemist, statesman and longtime president of Harvard University, she has had particular access to the behind-the-scenes workings of history. From that access have come...